A driven female TV reporter. A runaway street girl with dreams of a better life. An excessively douchey nightclub owner. A heavy metal soundtrack (and theme song). A demon who dispatches his victims by flinging compact discs.
Now, can we talk sensibly?
We're always discussing these delightful sequels that take a sharp turn into some other dimension, and why that's sometimes good and sometimes not. But this ain't no Aliens. This ain't no New Batch. This is Pinhead Takes Manhattan, or more accurately, Clive Barker's New Nightmare. As the plot explains, Pinhead has broken free from his typical Cenobite functions and has become a straightforward real world slasher -- and the "real world" is New York City (which clearly isn't) in the year Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Two. Gone is the gothic, timeless setting of the vaguely European locations of the first two films - as are nearly all of the "rules" and motivations put in place by their complex (though sometimes flimsy) mythology. Nothing against Parts One & Two, but that story was done and had nowhere to go. If they were gonna press on, there had to be a change - that's reality. But what kind of change is where there seems to be some disagreements.
The movie starts with that same familiar tone: shadowy surroundings, a mysterious transaction, the Christopher Young title music, a hook-related body explosion. It's comfortable but boring.
Then we meet Brad.
Brad has about a page of dialogue. He shows up for a scene to instruct lead character Joey to be sexier and wear shorter skirts when she conducts her on-camera interviews. Brad has no real plot function, but his snappy dialect and obnoxious demeanor and dated wardrobe and haircut would set us down a path from which we would never return. Brad single-handedly initiated this into "franchise mode": Hellraiser would never be the same.
And was that so bad? ...Well, they had a good thing going there - and it only would've taken a bit of effort to keep up that sorta Hammer Films vibe they created with the previous two. And it's important to note: following this movie they truly tried to get back to original stories that only vaguely referenced the Cenobite stuff. But it would never be like it was - and it would certainly never be anything like this movie.
Hell on Earth may be a spike on the timeline, but in many ways that spike stands alone. People have long lamented that the once-supporting "Lead Cenobite" eventually took over the series - simultaneously diminishing his mystique and trivializing the story aspects. In actuality, I've seen five of the seven films that follow this one (yes, there are ten with an eleventh on the way), and those were all convoluted psychological thrillers with barely a mention of Pinhead.
But no, not this one. This one is The Pinhead Show; it's an origin story, it's an anomaly, it's a renegade, it's a "fuck you" to the fervent fanboys & girls who swore by the books and/or the first films. The menacing chains have become the chainsaw, the razor glove, the machete. He's no longer seeking out the individual souls who summon him via The Box to fulfill their masochistic curiosities and shower them with flowery prose. He's out for blood - any type. A body count. To press the stinking face of humanity into the dark blood of its own secret heart. Hell on Earth.
And when better to start than the 1990s? Upon further exploration we learn that Pinhead's physical self began only as recently as the First World War, but whatever he's made of and whatever he does is timeless; he carries the history and knowledge of humanity within his supernatural essence. So when he's resuscitated into the age of "Achy Breaky Heart" and "Baby Got Back," his disgust is vindicated. This isn't the worst he's seen (either physically or psychically), but clearly there's been no evolution in regards to the brand of enlightenment he dispenses. He's now here to punish with pleasure (rather than please with punishment), and it comes to fruition in one of the more famous scenes in the film (and maybe the franchise).
Pinhead unleashes Hell on a crowd of unsuspecting nightclub patrons in an orgy of bloody latex and VFX. I find it as satisfying as the pool party in Freddy's Revenge or the cornfield slaughter in Freddy vs. Jason or any confrontation in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I recently poured my heart out in regards to my boredom with the Slasher genre - and it's because I only ever want scenes like this. I don't know if that makes me lowbrow but I'm not sorry about it - they make these movies about these savage monsters who are frequently and bafflingly too timid to just go ahead and kill the cast. So when something like this happens, it's just about the most believable thing in this or any of these movies.
It was easy to not be scared of Pinhead and the 'bites because I'd never had any intention to dive into the Lament Configuration. Hell on Earth removes that safety net and asserts that I could get a hook in the hand at any moment. What's worse is that I could end up as part of his crew - damned to saunter around in black pleather with my lips stapled to my nuts for all eternity (or at least until the next sequel). But that was another neato part of this movie: the way Cenobites are made like comic book villains. Whatever basic traits they had when they were alive mixed with however they were killed and presto change-o: Camerahead, Pistonhead, CDhead, et al. The lore this movie gave was noticeably more accessible and cartoonish, and I'm somehow both pleased and put off by it.
There are smudges throughout that are unfortunate. While still a theatrical release, it was still low budget stuff - which was handled decidedly well with the first two, but wobbled under the weight of their attempt to turn this one into an Action picture. The nastiness of the gore is made a little less nasty with some lazier effects, and it's tough to turn a general mood into movement. There's an awkward foot chase in which Joey (Terry Farell) frolics down a poorly-dressed city street at night while dodging fireballs, reckless drivers, and downed power lines - because Pinhead don't run. Though this is immediately followed by the best scene in the movie as Joey seeks refuge in a church - which backfires as Pinhead follows behind and joyfully mocks the establishment in grotesque ways. This scene actually managed to piss off the Jesus freaks - which means this so-called silly sequel still had some teeth.
This movie was born outta 3 things: the rise of Dimension Films, the fall of New World Pictures, and the fact that virtually no one from the previous installments (except Doug Bradley) were willing to reprise their roles. What that meant was: Clive Barker was to never again have any creative input, and Pinhead now belonged to Miramax. And throughout the decade, they would do as much for him as they did for Michael Myers - more or less just shitting the bed on screen. So, save for Part IV (which I also like), Hell on Earth is the next-to-final act in what I consider to be the official Hellraiser Quadrilogy: an unbroken narrative in which the supporting character with nails in his head becomes the surprise lead to guide us through some fucked up folklore about a sadomasochistic Rubik's Cube. We visit Hell, the U.S., the U.K., outer space, World War One, the Vietnam War, 1796, 2127, and, unmistakably, the 1990s.
- Paul
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